Mulvane ride

I haven't done a 50 km ride in some time now. So since Sunday is my day off I will be heading out from the apartment down to Mulvane and back. I am going to try and just set a nice pace and enjoy the ride. It is supposed to be a high of 70F tomorrow and no rain which will be perfect riding weather for me. I will probably take a break, down at the Mulvane cemetery, which is the halfway point where I turn around. If anyone reading this is interested in going I will headout after noon. A morning person I am not. So shoot me an email if you would like to go. 

Rain...

Well, it appears it's going to be a lovely overcast, wet, rainy day. Usually I love these days. However today, being my day off, I have to be downtown this evening for a study club at my Lodge. I admit I don't like biking in the rain much. I really need to get off my tail and get some good rain gear. I could drive but I get so few days off that I will hate myself tomorrow for not biking to my meeting tonight. 

So I am going to suck it up and bike downtown in a little while. Hopefully traffic will be ok. My biggest concern with biking since I started has been safety. I hope to post a few safety questions for folks to think about and perhaps share their wisdom on in the following post or two. But for now it's time to shower and prepare for a wet miserable ride. 

The ride home was a lot more wet than the ride downtown. I really need some rain gear. But I got in a good 14.63 miles. Traffic on the way home was very light. Route I took. Cateye: 15 / 25.8 mph, 168 / 189 bpm, 72 / 162 cadence. 

The ride from yesterday...

So since yesterday was my day off and since it was perfect riding weather (I love overcast, cool, sunless days) I headed out from the apartment at around 2:30 pm. Went north to douglas then west as far as I could. Which happened to be a little further than 'Western Douglas Park' ? I think that was name. There was road construction a few blocks west of there so I turned around in front of a gas station there and headed back. I took two breaks to rest. I should know better than to head out for a ride without eating. Also I still can't seem to do more than 20 miles without my hind side really starting to hurt. I was feeling the pain in the saddle on the last few miles home. Exaggerated no doubt by the idiocy of not eating before going on a ride. I could literally feel I was out of energy the last few miles. I had to pep talk my way home the last few miles. Anyway it was a good 20.69 miles. 

My cateye stats were (average/max): 12.5 / 26.1 mph, 153 / 195 bpm, 66 / 199 cadence. Cadence was *awful*, just absolutely disgusting. I can't blame that all on not eating before the ride. Although I think the few stops I made played a part in messing up the stats a little bit. I hit 195 bpm running through the road construction in front of Il Vicino. I never have hit higher than 181-182. I looked down and saw 195 and panicked a little. I thought my heart was about to explode or something. I felt ok. For some reason I associate heart rates approaching 200 as danger! danger! I should read up on heart rates in cycling tonight at work and see if that is normal or if I should be going to get a checkup.

So that was the ride from sunday. I like taking douglas west and then back east because of the hills on the way back starting at the Crown Uptown. I like being pushed towards the end of the ride with those hills. It really makes me push myself. I don't know if it's doing any good health wise but it cannot be an worse than sitting at home typing on a keyboard. So hopefully it's doing something positive. I found a fellow cyclists blog for wichita and was glad to know there are others here enjoying and posting about cycling. Still not a big fan of the Oz club. Hopefully I will meet some other folks here soon to ride with.